Mural by Diego Rivera of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan and life in Aztec times, 1945

Indigenismo in the United States

The adoption of Aztec cultural iconography by modern activists has roots in Mexican nationalist policies of the 1920s.
A view of the outlet of the Cloaca Maxima by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, ca. 1776

Venus of the Sewers

The Roman sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, was presided over by a goddess whose shrine stood near the Forum.
Parker Pillsbury

Parker Pillsbury, Nineteenth-Century Male Feminist

Abolitionists like the New Hampshire native believed that masculinity required self-control, setting them against violent enslavers.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa

At South Africa’s Constitutional Court, a Democracy Brick by Brick

The themes of truth and reconciliation echo throughout the Court’s design, evoking the democratic values of post-apartheid South Africa.
Women from Boston and Charleston, West Virginia, holding signs, demonstrating against textbooks, Washington, D.C., 1975

When a Battle to Ban Textbooks Became Violent

In 1974, the culture wars came to Kanawha County, West Virginia, inciting protests over school curriculum.
Portrait of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo

The Women (Real and Imagined) Resisting Caudillos

In Latin America and the Caribbean, women's groups have acted to oppose military dictatorships. In fiction, their roles are rarely that of protagonist.
Friedrich Schlegel

What Does It Mean To Be German?

A German scholar's work on India, meant to foster European unity, instead may have sown the seed of nationalism.
Woodcut illustration of chess c. 1480

Knights and Kings: Medieval Chess as Male Bonding

Scholar Jenny Adams examines the homosocial facets of the game through literature of the Middle Ages.
An aerial view of the prehistoric White horse carved into the hillside at Uffington,Berkshire

Whence the White Horse of Uffington?

A white horse of chalk both defines and defies a common understanding of what English heritage is, and is not.
Collage of American Prison Newspapers

Introducing American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

This overlooked corner of the press provided news by and for people who were incarcerated. A newly available archive shows it worked hard to reach outside audiences too.